


Manatu atu

by swallowthewhale



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-17
Updated: 2017-05-17
Packaged: 2018-11-01 23:04:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10931877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swallowthewhale/pseuds/swallowthewhale
Summary: “I don’t want to fight you.” It’s a reprise of every other time he’s faced Caitlin since she died, and it’s a last ditch attempt. Cisco is armed with nothing more than his gauntlets and goggles, and words that mean nothing. He doesn’t want to fight her, but he will.





	Manatu atu

_I have crossed the horizon to find you_

 

Cisco hasn’t slept in three days. Every time he closes his eyes, he sees Iris slipping off Savitar’s blade and Caitlin standing over him, blue eyed and mist spilling from her hands. He drinks a full pack of energy drinks instead, until his hands are shaking, and steadies them by running diagnostics on the Flash suit, tweaking his gauntlets, helping Tracy with her bazooka, and trying really hard not to look over at Caitlin’s desk. If she were still here, she would have forced him to sleep, let him eat her pizza pockets, and sat with him in the pipeline when he wanted to cry, head on his shoulder, at three-forty in the morning until Cisco could think of a stupid joke to make her laugh. Cisco can’t think of any stupid jokes now.

He tosses his pen down with a sigh, and slowly climbs the ten flights to the top of one of the winged turrets. He hasn’t been up here since the night Caitlin died, after everyone else left, and Cisco was finally able to cry. The city lights cloud the sky, but he can still pick out some of the constellations Caitlin had taught him to spot. Draw a line from Ursa Major to the North Star at the tip of Ursa Minor, which lies in the cradle of Draco’s tail. She had shown him Sagittarius, too, and Pegasus and Andromeda, but they lie too close to the horizon to find.

“No Cisco,” she’d say, rolling her eyes. “You can’t just make up constellations!” But she’d smile a little, and bump shoulders with him, and he’d make up silly names anyway. It’s his favorite part of himself, being able to make stern Caitlin Snow laugh.

“I know you’re here. Come out and face me like a woman!”

 

_I know your name_

 

When Ronnie died, the first time, Cisco hadn’t known what to say. What do you say to your friend whose fiancee just sacrificed himself to save the city? To save you? What do you say when you’re alive but not him? So instead, Cisco brought Caitlin food, watched stupid movies with her, covered her with a blanket when she fell asleep on his shoulder, and held her hand the first day they went back to Star Labs. He went to Ronnie’s funeral and stood in the back with fake-Wells and when everyone was gone, he let Caitlin cry into his suit.

“I don’t want to fight you.” It’s a reprise of every other time he’s faced Caitlin since she died, and it’s a last ditch attempt. Cisco is armed with nothing more than his gauntlets and goggles, and words that mean nothing. He doesn’t want to fight her, but he will. She doesn’t want to kill him, but she will. Cisco is her last tie to humanity.

Lying in the snow, Cisco wonders if this was always supposed to be how it ended.

 

_They have stolen the heart from inside you_

 

When Cisco was ten, he’d wanted nothing more than for Dante to be his best friend. He learned guitar so they could play together, he snuck into Dante’s room and made a list of every book on Dante’s shelf so he could read them, he made playlist after playlist that Danted never listened to. By the time he was twelve, Cisco had accepted the truth; Dante would never want to be his friend, and Cisco decided that meant Dante wasn’t his brother either. Later, after Snart kidnapped them and they forged some kind of hesitant relationship, Cisco admitted, if only to himself, that they both could have done better. Even later, after Dante died, Cisco admitted that he could have tried harder.

“I should have tried harder,” Cisco says, staring up at the sky. He can’t see through the trees, but for some reason, knowing that the stars are still there is comforting.

He can hear Caitlin step closer.

He yanks the goggles off his face. “I’d never had a best friend, before you.”

 

_But this does not define you_

 

When Caitlin gets sick, Cisco drives her home, buys her mountains of strawberry jello, and watches period dramas with her until she falls asleep. He quiets the world around her to ease her migraines, lets her tuck her frigid toes into his legs, and makes her hot chocolate. When Cisco gets sick, Caitlin force feeds him soup, sets reminders on his phone to drink water every hour, and lets him eat ice cream straight from the carton. She presses cold hands on his forehead, holds his hair back when he vomits, and suffers through Star Wars marathons for him. And when Cisco is hyped up on drugs, he says the same thing every time.

Caitlin stops. “What are you doing, Vibe?” She means to sneer, but her voice is shaky.

“I’m afraid, Caitlin.” he whispers.

“Afraid of dying?” Her voice is still echoing back on itself, but she sounds unsure.

“I’d rather it be me than you.”

 

_This is not who you are_

 

When Dante died, Caitlin knew just what to say. She slept on his couch for a week to make sure he ate. She prescribed him meds so that the headache of vibes he couldn’t control vanished. She let him fall asleep with his head in her lap, even though she gets twitchy when he pushes into her personal space too often. She held his hand at Dante’s funeral, and sat outside with him at the wake, and curled around him in his bed that night.

“I’m sorry, Cait, that I wasn’t enough.”

The silence stretches, thin and fragile, out over the snow. All Cisco can hear is the rustle of leaves above them, the murmur of city life in the distance.

“You were always enough, Cisco.”

 

_You know who you are_

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by: http://anisstaranise.tumblr.com/post/160265703795/who-you-truly-are
> 
> Title and lyrics from "Know Who You Are" from Moana


End file.
